


Admiring the View

by Snarky_Warden



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:01:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28495761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snarky_Warden/pseuds/Snarky_Warden
Summary: Zevwarden Week 2020: Eye of the Beholder - AdmirationAn abrupt knee to the back pulls Zevran from his usual light sleep. Instead of anger, he can only gaze at his warden with a certain affection and admiration in his eyes.
Relationships: Zevran Arainai/Female Tabris, Zevran Arainai/Female Warden
Comments: 3
Kudos: 20
Collections: ZevWarden Week 2020





	Admiring the View

The warden surprised him. Not all at once, but with things she did or said. Every time it happened he found himself smiling, whatever the reason. When foul language dropped from her lips in a tirade about getting woken up early, he chuckled. When she told stories about the alienage that got everyone laughing by the end of it, he felt warmth. And when she wiped blood spatter from her face, wickedness in her eyes as she conquered her foes, he wanted to stand at her side.

_Kallian_.

Her name tasted better on the lips than whispered in his head.

Zevran hadn’t expected to wake up next to the warden. Certainly he’d hoped their flirting would turn to something more. He took great delight in making her cheeks go red while she returned his flirtations back. Yes, he’d very much hoped that jokes about bed warming would become real offers to tangle in the sheets.

But here he was, by her side in the morning, without any tangling of sheets at all. Just her warmth of skin against skin, a soft place to rest his head. This is what he never saw coming.

He wished he’d seen the rather pointy knee coming his way. That was also new. For all the things he admired about the warden, he was less a fan of her ability to bruise in her sleep. A knife in the back would be almost predictable to an assassin like him, but a knee in the back while soundly sleeping in the safety of their camp was just annoying.

She sprawled. Kallian was sound asleep with one arm stretched to the corner of her tent, a knee up, other leg stretched down, and her other arm close to giving him a mean uppercut if she decided to stretch yet again.

And he didn’t want to leave. Lips that turned so often into a sly smirk were softly parted, air whistling as she took long slow breaths. Her long eyelashes brushed her soft cheeks and strands of blonde hair fluttered with every breath.

Not for the first time he had to reach out, to gently tuck the stray hairs behind her finely pointed ear, just to have an excuse to brush his fingers across her skin. That was the first surprise: the innocence in her face, big brown eyes that said she would never harm a fly, the soft rounded cheeks when she smiled. He never expected the warden to look so young. To be so young. Not that he was an old man - as he kept reminding her whenever she poked fun.

A draft of freezing cold air rushed into the tent. It had gotten abruptly cold in the night. Fang, at their feet, stirred and huffed.

“Me too, my friend,” Zevran whispered to the Mabari.

His gaze wandered from Kallian’s face down to her collarbone, marked with purpling reminders of his nibbling. He grinned and brushed his fingers across the skin. She barely stirred at his touch. The wind blew again and he was struck with a desire to bury himself against her warmth. And why deny himself that simple pleasure?

He skirted his hand along her bare abdomen and wrapped himself around her. His personal sun.

“Mmmm,” she mumbled, a soft huff of breath.

Why did that quiet sound make his heart squeeze and ache? In spite of himself he smiled again, curled around her, tucking her limbs back in so he could pull her tight. He was so close their foreheads touched. Close enough to see every individual blonde eyelash, the curve of her upper lip, the pink scar through her eyebrow the only clue that she was more than this sweet innocent girl. So much more.

The wind whistled and Fang growled at it. But here, Zevran was warm. He pressed his lips to her forehead and stayed close, content to stare.

Kallian’s eyes fluttered open, sleepy and warm brown like melted chocolate. “Wha’re you lookin’ at?” she murmured, eyes already falling closed as she said it.

“Admiring the view, of course,” he whispered.

Everything about her was warm, inviting him in, her touch was sun on his skin as she wordlessly tucked herself under his chin, breath soft on his bare chest. A moment in the sun before the world called its Grey Warden back to it.


End file.
